It is well known that the USA uses miles, feet and inches and they are identical to the English versions of these units used in the UK. What is a lot less well known is the fact that the USA had two official feet, the international foot and the survey foot. By extension, there were also two versions of derived units based on these two feet. So there were survey and international versions of common units such as the mile, yard and inch. The US survey foot was deprecated at the end of last year. This deprecation act shows the importance of ensuring uniformity and common standards in measurement matters.
Continue reading “Retirement of the US survey foot”Tag: standardisation
Straight bananas and the metric system – the EU legacy?
With Brexit still dominating the news, Ronnie Cohen looks at one of the biggest obstacles to completing our transition to the metric system: its perceived link to the European Union.
Continue reading “Straight bananas and the metric system – the EU legacy?”
Break of railway gauge proposed
The UK Department for Transport is proposing that a break in railway gauge should be introduced at the UK-French border. Britain’s main line railways will adopt the Irish track gauge of 1600 mm (5’– 3”).
Metric Views 